Film Production
The first film project undertaken was a flight training aid titled, Learn and Live. Set in "Pilot's Heaven", the feature-length film stars Guy Kibbee as Saint Peter. In order to demonstrate correct aviation techniques, twelve common flying mistakes are addressed. The film was highly regarded and led to a series of films including Learn and Live in the Desert, Ditch and Live and Learn and Live in the Jungle.
Resisting Enemy Interrogation was lauded by the military and according to documentarian Gregory Orr is considered to be the "best educational film" produced during the war. It tells the story of two captured flyers in dramatic and suspenseful fashion. They are interrogated at a German chateau. The layout of the chateau, the interrogation strategy and the overall experience of the film was extremely realistic. Airmen captured after viewing the film reported that they were able to successfully resist German efforts to extract information. The feature-length film was of the highest quality and in recognition the documentary was nominated for an Academy Award in 1944.
Animation was an essential and integral component of films produced at Fort Roach. Animation provided FMPU filmmakers with scenarios not possible with live action photography due to technical or secrecy constraints. In an introductory training film, pilots learn how to fly airplanes with the help of colorful cartoon characters named Thrust, Gravity and Drag, representative of the forces which act on airframes. Another character, Mr. Chameleon was created to teach the fine points of military camouflage. "Trigger Joe"'s appearance in Position Firing was an immediate hit amongst gunners. Animators used humor to illustrate common pitfalls when loading and firing and techniques to maximize their efficiency and accuracy. Gunnery personnel clamored for more: "We want more films like Position Firing that make the theory simple and clear and yet keep us interested. And Trigger Joe! He's great!" Joe became the central character in an entire series of films developed to further gunnery training. The animation department was staffed with a stellar assortment of animators, including department head Rudolf Ising, one of the creators of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and one of Disney's Nine Old Men, Frank Thomas.
Read more about this topic: First Motion Picture Unit
Famous quotes containing the words film and/or production:
“All the old supports going, gone, this man reaches out a hand to steady himself on a ledge of rough brick that is warm in the sun: his hand feeds him messages of solidity, but his mind messages of destruction, for this breathing substance, made of earth, will be a dance of atoms, he knows it, his intelligence tells him so: there will soon be war, he is in the middle of war, where he stands will be a waste, mounds of rubble, and this solid earthy substance will be a film of dust on ruins.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)